


I Saw It In The Flight Of Birds

by Burning_Nightingale



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Blood, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Not Really Character Death, Visions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-03
Updated: 2014-01-03
Packaged: 2018-01-07 05:32:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1116101
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burning_Nightingale/pseuds/Burning_Nightingale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Loki has returned to Asgard. Many things are different; some, it seems, will never change.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Saw It In The Flight Of Birds

**Author's Note:**

> Obviously, this was written before I watched Thor 2. It was pretty random; I didn't really have any plan for it even as I was writing. Basically I just want to see Valkyries in the Thor movies, because Valkyries are fricking badass.

She holds the cup as if afraid it might fall from her hand. It brims with the sweet wine, nectar of the gods, but she hasn’t taken a sip.

A bird flutters past outside the window; it is probably a robin, but in Loki’s imagination it is a crow. A large, ugly, black crow with burning eyes…no, one burning eye. Just one.

He turns his mind from that path.

“You look ill,” Frigga says, her voice slightly weak. Her hand trembles a little; is _she_ ill? He examines her face. She looks pale, drawn; are there more of the slight wrinkles around her eyes? He has to admit he’s never counted them before.

“Things haven’t been going well for me recently,” he answers, voice soft.

She doesn’t say anything else. In truth he’s glad; he half expected her to break down and weep when he and Thor returned. His ‘mother’ has never been a weak, frail woman, but the past few months have not been kind to her. First the debacle of Thor’s exile, then his fall into the Void, and now this extravagance on Earth…

He can’t say he regrets it, but he is sad she has let it cut her so deep.

“Is Odin coming to speak with us?”

Frigga closes her eyes for a second, and when she reopens them her look is hurt. “He’s not coming,” she says, her voice clipped. She finally takes a sip of the wine, and then stands, her dress snapping slightly in the wake of her movements as she goes to the window.

He hides a sigh. Did she truly expect him to still name the King of Asgard ‘father’? She is more naïve than he thought.

“My dear, you’ve not heard that Thor went back to Earth, have you?” she says, shifting the wine around the glass absently as she stares out to the glittering city beyond.

“Such news has not reached my ears,” he admits. “Did his friends call upon his services again?”

She glances back at him; she didn’t miss the bitterness of his tone. “No. He went to find her, the mortal woman.”

Jane Foster. Yes. She would have been useful, had Loki had the time to find her. S.H.E.I.L.D. had hidden her somewhere ‘safe’, and though nowhere was beyond his reach in Midgard, he had had bigger fish to fry. He snorts quietly. “Surely Odin does not intend to let him keep the mortal?”

Frigga is silent, so he takes that as a no. “He could make her one of us,” Loki continues, “Kings can do that, you know.”

“You say it as if you’d care,” Frigga snaps suddenly, not looking at him, “If it were you making the decision.”

He raises a brow, and when nothing more is forthcoming, raises himself from the chaise lounge. He makes his way to the door. “You say it as if you’d know. What I’d do.” Then he is gone.

That night he dreams about the crow. It stares with its one burning, accusing eye, sitting on his chest. Around him lie the silent dead, the fallen on the battlefield.

“I know who you are,” he croaks at it, his voice scratchy and throat raw. It _caws_ once, loudly, and takes flight. It circles above his head, once, twice, and then soars to alight on the end of a long spear thrust head down in the mud. Utters its shrill cry once more, the only sound above the moan of the wind.

He would like to get up, but he cannot move. A tall figure is making its way toward him through the half-light, indistinct in the gloom, but even from this distance he knows their helm is crowned with feathers. _My brother._

But it is not so. The form is that of a woman, dark-haired and armoured in long chainmail. As she reaches out her hand to take the spear from the ground, Loki sees her arm is covered in a dark, thick substance; blood, but not her own. The crow is displaced, _cawing_ indignantly, and it flutters away through the darkening sky.

The woman reaches her hand down to him. “Come, Loki, son of Laufey,” she says, “Fólkvangr awaits.”

 _Fólkvangr. The land of the dead. No._ He begins to shout, but suddenly the dream is done. He is back in his own bed, back in Asgard.

The crow is still there, though, perched on the end of his bed. He stares at it, strange terror rising in his throat, until he realizes it is not, in fact, a crow. It is a raven. A familiar raven; a raven that once ate scraps from the palm of his hand, a raven that he has seen sitting on his father’s shoulders since he was a small boy. “Muninn,” he whispers, holding out a hand to the creature.

It cocks its head and observes him quizzically with one round eye, then hops forward over the blanket to perch on his hand. He smiles and Muninn _caws_ , though the sound is somehow comforting now. It reminds him of how the bird and its brother would make raucous amounts of noise as they returned from their daily trips to Midgard, and how his father would shush them before asking them what they had seen.

The call is returned from somewhere just outside his door, and seconds later the door swings inward. Huginn is perched on the shoulder of another familiar figure.

“I thought you were in Midgard,” Loki says as Thor sits heavily on his bed. “To what do I owe the pleasure?”

“The birds called me back,” Thor says. He is oddly subdued; Loki wonders if this is because he has been so abruptly summoned, or if he has realized the futility of his relationship with the mortal. “Father wished to speak to me. About Jane.”

 _The second option then._ “The news is not good.” It was a statement, and he kept his tone neutral.

Thor looked askance at him. “You already knew?”

“I had guessed. Mo-Frigga suggested as much, this afternoon.”

Thor nods and they both lapse into silence. Odin’s decision preys heavily on Thor’s mind, Loki can see that. Once, he would have comforted him. He finds it strange that even now that they have lost that bond, Thor has still come to him in his hour of need.

But there is no comfort Loki can give, so he changes the subject. “I had a dream about a crow,” he says, for lack of anything better.

Thor looks faintly surprised. “A crow?”

“I was on a battlefield. The crow was on my chest. Then it flew away and I saw a Valkyrie. She told me it was time to follow her to Fólkvangr.”

The frown on Thor’s brow deepens. “That is not good. To have a premonition of one’s own death…”

Sudden panic claws at Loki’s chest. “That is not my death,” he snaps, sitting up straighter. “I’m not going to die.”

Thor lays a hand on his arm. “I hope not, brother.” He rises, his shoulders still slumped as if weighed down. “I will retire,” he says quietly, then trains a piercing stare on Loki. “Tell me, if you dream again of Valkyries or Fólkvangr, of your death.”

Loki nods, but looks away. The ravens leave with Thor, and once again alone he finds it hard to go back to sleep.


End file.
